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Can you really have faith in everything that’s on the internet? Of course, not. But, that being said, company leaders need to put an awful lot of trust in their employees, the people they’ve hired to manage their network, and the infrastructure and reliability of the network itself. But, if you’re expected to trust so many different factors revolving around your business, while also being told not to be too careful to trust everything else — like WiFi connections or suspicious emails — then how can you navigate your way around all this?

These days, having someone to vouch for you, or having someone vouch for the people you’ll be working with, is one of the oldest, yet most reliable ways to secure your network and your company. Going off of that, it’s equally important to have extra eyes helping to look out for your company at all times.

If the Dark Web does it, so can you?

If you’re familiar with the Dark Web, “trustworthy” wouldn’t necessarily be the first term you would use to describe it. But, believe it or not, sellers on Tor need to be verified for the authenticity of their products as well as themselves as users before being able to complete a transaction. This is done by having current members introduce new members through a system of vouching. Without this, you can’t get onto the site.

So, if the Dark Web relies on some form of vouching in order to be able to trust their users, then surely large companies should be doing something similar. It’s not enough to just have certain cybersecurity protocols in place — although, those are important as well. If you can incorporate a system of vouching along with placing outside eyes wherever you can, then you’ll be protected in ways that machines can’t protect you.

Apply this system to vendors and employees

Of course, companies find ways to vouch for people, too, similar to how it’s done on the Dark Web. When we hire someone, HR usually asks for references, recommendations, and will maybe even do some snooping around on social media to get to know more about this person. The same goes if you’re working with third-party vendors or onboarding and offboarding part-time employees. You need to know who you’re going to be working with. You can go this route, but you can also ask around to see who else has worked with the people you’re planning to work with. These days, it’s very easy to check a person’s or a company’s reputation online, so you can take advantage of this.

Hire someone to look out for you

If your Facebook account gets hacked and your friends find out because they are getting spam messages from you, it’s likely that one of those friends will notify you of this so that you are aware. In a sense, this is a form of informal (and free) cybersecurity. You’re too busy running things at the company to be concerned with staying on top of security, employees, networks, risks, etc. Therefore, hiring managed services to help you keep an eye on things internally and externally can help ensure that nothing fishy comes up.

Down to checks and balances

This idea of vouching further enforces the notion of checks and balances in a company who cares about its cybersecurity. A managed service provider checks the IT team, the IT team checks HR, the company checks the employees, and vigilant, trustworthy employees can keep their eyes out for the company. While a professional certainly helps handle this process at the expert level, it never hurts to rely on people you trust to keep things in balance.

Whether you’re starting a business from scratch or finally making investments to grow your business, one thing you’re probably thinking about is hiring people to help. Any time you can bring people on board to help you with business tasks, it’s evident that you’re thinking about long-term strategies, and that’s great. But, before you start doing what it seems like everyone else is doing to be successful (in this case, hiring an IT team to help with tasks you don’t know how to do), hold off for just a second. While there’s no doubt that an IT team is instrumental in any company these days, it’s actually much more important to hire a CIO before anything else.

Here’s why:

1) You Should Know What Kind of Talent to Look For

It may seem as though all IT experts can be thrown in the same category. They all went to school for computer engineering, they are all smart in their own way, and most importantly, they seem to know a lot more about information technology than you do. But, the thing is, many business leaders don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to this stuff.

Any IT person possesses a unique skill asset which can either make them a great fit for your company or not at all. A CIO can determine what talent is ideal for your company, so you know what kind of skills and abilities you’re looking for in a person, before making any decisions.

2) You Don’t Want to Spend Money Unnecessarily

Do you need one IT person, or do you need a team? Or, can the jobs you need to be taken care of right now be handled by the CIO? Before you start to spend money on resources that you don’t currently need, let your CIO determine exactly what it is and who it is you should be investing your hard-earned money in.

3) Don’t Leave Out the Need for External Vendors

It’s not just an in-house IT team that needs proper vetting before being hired. It’s also – if not, more – the external vendors you might be working with. There’s a whole process of identity management and onboarding and offboarding that needs to happen in order to protect a company from an unintentional (or sometimes, intentional) data breach of any kind. A CIO can determine what strategies should be in place prior to hiring external vendors.

4) Perhaps Your Network Needs a Change

Just as a CIO would help you hire an IT expert that has the appropriate skill set for your network, they can also determine if you’re using the right technology, software, cloud infrastructure, etc. Before making any employment decisions, it’s a good idea to make sure you don’t need to change anything about your network, first. After all, it would be frustrating for an IT person to get familiar with your system, just to have to learn something else.

5) You Need an Unbiased Assessment Before Deploying Resources

Hiring a CIO before hiring an IT team is like going to your general practitioner before seeing a specialist. While it might seem that going to a specialist straight away would make sense time-wise and financially, there may not be anything you need to worry about in the first place. This can be true of your company, too. Don’t jump to any conclusions and don’t spend money on resources you may not need, whether that be an IT person or a certain piece of technology. Instead, hire a CIO and have them assess your network before hiring or deploying any resources.

But, What If I Already Have an IT Team?

If you’ve already hired an IT team, don’t worry. You don’t need to let anybody go. But, you can and should still hire a CIO to help serve as the liaison between you as the company leader and your IT squad. It’s never too late to have an unbiased expert hop on board and take a look at everything. This way, there can be a system of checks and balances to ensure your business is being run as efficiently as possible, while every team member truly feels as though his or her role is vital in the success of the company.

That being said, if possible, reaching out to a knowledgeable CIO should be the first step, not the last. A CIO can help manage your network in a way that nobody else can. And, not just in terms of hiring decisions, but security, backup, disaster recovery, and everything in between.